Category: Overall Equipment Effectiveness

What is your goal for Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) in 2020? I suggest keeping it simple:

A continually increasing trend in OEE over time.

OEE can be an elusive metric unless you understand what it measures: Ideal Run Time vs Actual Run Time expressed as a percentage. The formula “Availability x Performance x Quality” categorically quantifies, expressed as a percentage, how OEE is affected by each factor.

Correctly calculating OEE is only the beginning. To continually improve OEE over time is where the journey truly begins. As the formula to calculate OEE suggests, it cannot be treated in isolation.

Micro Lean and OEE

Although OEE is not necessarily considered a “lean” metric, the opportunities for improvement may very well be. To improve OEE, identify opportunities where the most significant increases exist and focus on the sub-trends for Availability, Performance, and Quality.

An opportunity to improve exists for every factor that is not 100%. As suggested by our post “Micro Lean in 2020,” the devil is in the details. The culmination of many small improvements can compound to yield significant positive results.

In practice, Availability and Quality tend to be the primary areas of focus. TPM (Total Preventive Maintenance), SMED (single minute exchange of dies), Quick Tool Change, and Six-Sigma represent best practices serving as mechanisms for change to help address these issues in kind.

As new initiatives, these programs quickly address the significant issues. The challenge is to seek opportunities for improvements continually. When viewed through the lens of “single-piece flow,” the opportunities are endless.

More advanced tools such as Va/Ve (Value Analysis / Value Engineering) and QFD (Quality Function Deployment), DOE (Design of Experiments), and TRIZ may help to explore opportunities that are not immediately obvious to the untrained eye.

The key is to recognize the goal and keep it in focus. The fun begins when we accept the challenge to maintain a continually increasing trend in OEE over time.